Being good at maths

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Hi everyone,

I was wondering if people have kids who aren't that good at maths and who are diagnosed with AS?

My son, (who is 7 and has AS), isn't very good at maths, but he's really good at literacy. Also my son has never had any interest in building things out of lego or blocks and hates construction activites. People always ask me if he wants lego/blocks for presents, and I have to tell them that he has no interest whatsoever in that sort of thing! They are surprised because I suspect most people believe that AS means you're a maths whizz.

Thanks for replies,

Temma

I have AS and was never good at math. I couldn't even understand the basics. Every time someone says that people with AS are math geniuses, I want to strangle them.

I have one son who was good at math, but didn't particularly ENJOY it. He was also very good at writing, reading, etc. He doesn't think he's that good at math, and my husband agrees that it doesn't come EASILY to him (it's not "intuitive"), but he did get good grades. This was my son who was good at building with Legos, but he always had to use the instructions -- he never creatively tried to build stuff on his own.

My younger son is GREAT at math, depending on his teacher. If he has a great teacher, it all clicks for him. But again, it's not "intuitive". Also, he has a difficult time with reading and writing. This son, like yours, has had very little interest in Lego.

I've read about many people on this forum who aren't necessarily great at math, but are wonderful writers.

Not until college/uni is maths interesting. I was no good at maths at school and thought it was my weak point. That changed at college.

Actually i was a math genius until i fried my brain smoking weed. and even now i'm not that bad. just a little disoriented from the substance abuse.

son doesn't particularly like math, nor does he particularly like legos...........all his lego creations used to hopelessly fall apar, & then he'd have a meltdown.........

Yes. Some kids don't like math.

Many aspies do.

This should not be surprising in that math is one of the few areas of life,
where there is a set of consistent, predictable rules.

Aspies like predictability.

When I was intense training I easily ranked in the fastest in my state (Texas) and in efficency I was ranked very high too.

Probably the "aspies are good at math" thing comes from the fact that people who are good at math are more likely to have aspergers (or at least that it appears that way) so I'm not surprised really.

Now, I'm really good at math (so I help propagate that myth ) but I'm also really verbal too - my verbal SAT score was only a bit below my math SAT score, and I have a prodigious love of reading and books. I have a writing disability, which makes writing difficult, but many other people I know that I think have comparable verbal skills are wonderful writers as well.

So I suppose it would be good to encourage people to give books and stuff like that, if he's interested in that kind of thing it would be good to encourage that interest.

Oh and people are right about maths not really getting interesting until university. Before then maths is really just a lot of arithmetic and calculation, things which I for one was ok/good but not stellar at. Uni maths is much more logic and critical thinking based and frankly a lot more fun (not to mention I'm much better at it )

From my experience at these boards, it seems just as varied with aspies as it is with NTs on liking maths, although maybe some aspies more obviously like maths due to obsessive interests and all that.

It is my observation that what distinguishes AS more than specific areas of skill or weakness is that whatever the areas are they tend to be good at they are really good at, and those that are weak, and are really weak. There is more "average" with AS.

the only math I was ever good at was trig. My brother who is 8 years younger has been helping me with my math since he was in kindergarten